The silkscreen location of C2,3 and R4 are the same as with the “Good” readers, don’t let that fool you. Visual cues that stand out on this circuit board are the non-plated mounting holes, the fiducials next to the crystal (bottom right) and in the top-left corner of the antenna coil, and the silkscreen has a slightly different and more glossy color. Close up of the “Bad” reader of the kind that was discovered later. It, too, does not read other cards than the ones that come with it: Left to right: Good reader, Bad reader as discovered later, Bad reader as shown and discussed before. It turned out there is another variant of the “Bad” card reader. (But probably the reason the inductor has different characteristics) Close-up of silkscreen around the IC, “Good” card reader. This difference is very hard to spot “in real life”.
![saicoo card reader wont work with max saicoo card reader wont work with max](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/418anOlGE7L.jpg)
On this second picture (above) the difference in antenna coil can be seen, the traces are a little narrower and further apart on the “Bad” reader. The color difference is now less clear but the other features can be seen better. (As they are all called RC-522) Same picture, better lighting. They can also be a visual cue to distinguish between the varieties of RC522 readers. The small dots (in top left and right corner) on the “Bad” reader are fiducials, a visual aid for the pick-and-place machine, and do not influence the functioning of the board. It again is not the cause of the problem.
![saicoo card reader wont work with max saicoo card reader wont work with max](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41NcGbfjwRS._SL500_.jpg)
The silkscreen text location is another visual cue. (The difference is in the antenna coil as the capacitance of the capacitors measures the same, a “white” C6 is equal in capacitance to a “brown” C6.) The difference in the antenna coil cannot (easily) be seen. The “Bad” readers use another type of capacitor, the color difference is not the cause of the problem, but it might be a good visual cue.
![saicoo card reader wont work with max saicoo card reader wont work with max](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51IFMO4-SHL._AC_SL1000_.jpg)
Notice the color of C4,5,6,7,8,9,10 & 11 is different, and note the location of the silkscreen text of C2,R3,R4 and C3. Notice the color difference of the capacitors. Replace C8,9,10 and 11, see further down) There has to be a difference:Īnd these are the differences between “Good” and “Bad” card readers: “Good” card reader on the left, “Bad” card reader on the right. and if this might be fixable so they do read all kinds of MIFARE / ISO/IEC14443-4 cards. Next step was to find out why the “Bad” modules aren’t reading OV-chipkaarten etc. So I took pictures of those variants of cardreaders, they can be found below. (Apart from the difference that “Good” readers read all cards and “Bad” readers only read the cards that come supplied with them). It appears there are a few subtle visual differences between the “Good” and “Bad” modules.
![saicoo card reader wont work with max saicoo card reader wont work with max](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0402/6885/7505/products/moovglass13promax_82acefc8-b94a-4030-8ae5-f10f28e09f1a_1600x.png)
Step one was to identify the various variants of this module and categorize them based on their (dis)ability to read various cards. The “Good” card readers do indeed read all those 13.56 Mhz RFID cards.
SAICOO CARD READER WONT WORK WITH MAX PLUS
The RC522 card reader should be able to read those cards because the MFRC522 IC that the reader is based on “supports all variants of the MIFARE Mini, MIFARE 1K, MIFARE 4K, MIFARE Ultralight, MIFARE DESFire EV1 and MIFARE Plus RF identification protocols.” (Quoting from it’s data sheet). Other cards, such as the OV-chipkaart, coffee machine / copier machine cards, single-use OV-chipkaart, bank cards, and other access cards are not being read. Those “Bad” card readers only read the blanc card and key-fob supplied with them (See “generic ad” picture). That’s obviously a problem when the door won’t open or the machine won’t start, or your project using those card readers doesn’t work with all the cards it should be working with. The problem that surfaced is that some of the RC522 card readers won’t read some cards (Including the OV-chipkaart). (Public transport card, Oyster card for UK readers). Participants of the MakerSpace can scan their cards to get access to the MakerSpace (access system) or to enable power to heavy machinery that requires training (After completing the training AC-node system). (There is a more detailed post in Dutch) RC522 module (picture source: generic advertisement) Choosy CardreadersĪt MakerSpace Leiden those RFID-RC522 card readers are used in the access-system and AC-node system.
SAICOO CARD READER WONT WORK WITH MAX HOW TO
In this blog post I want to explain how to recognize these faulty readers and how to fix them. Some of the RC-522 RFID card reader modules that can be bought on ebay / aliexpress have a problem: they do not read all (types of) cards they should be able to read.